


Mark

by speos



Category: Batman - All Media Types, DCU
Genre: Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Platonic Soulmates, soulmates leave colors on each other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-21
Updated: 2020-08-21
Packaged: 2021-03-06 15:41:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,900
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26031310
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/speos/pseuds/speos
Summary: Soulmate AU where you leave colors on people who mean a lot to you.Jason only has two marks: one from Thalia al Ghul, and one from the Joker when he died. Cas has one: from when her mother killed her. She wants to find out if both of them could have a new mark not borne from death.
Relationships: Cassandra Cain & Jason Todd
Comments: 4
Kudos: 66





	Mark

After breaking his wrist in what had to be the stupidest fall of all time – down the stairs from the laundromat – Jason was on mandatory rest for at least two weeks. Artemis and Bizarro would barely let him climb the stairs to the roof of his own goddamn apartment.

The air was cold so high up, but as with everything in Gotham, it carried with it a faint sheen of smog and even the cool breeze felt dirty.

Jason took a deep breath in anyway, hoping the dip in temperature would help clear his mind.

He’d gotten into an argument with Dick, earlier. All Dick had wanted to do was help, apparently, but for a former trapeze artist, he was real butterfingered when it came to Jason and his neuroses.

“I just don’t understand why you won’t let me touch you!” Dick had yelled. “Are you scared? Are you scared that we’ll matter more to you than you want us to?”

Jason hadn’t responded in the most mature of ways, he was willing to admit – he’d aimed an ineffective punch at Dick before launching a smoke bomb and fleeing to his safe house.

Jason studied the dark purple band mottled across his throat in the reflection of his helmet, like a neon bruise. Maybe the bruise was hiding under it still.

Everything was different, when Jason woke up.

Jason remembered how he became a Robin – a Bat. He remembered tire-jacking the Batmobile, he remembered meeting Alf for the first time, he remembered those hideous green panties he wore for like a week.

Jason remembered all that, and then he remembered dying. He remembered the sharp pain of the cowbar as it broke his bones one by one. He remembered the weight of the Joker’s hands against his throat, the tightness around his neck, the desperation and sensation of drowning as he ran out of oxygen.

He remembered burning, and the bright fire. He remembered wondering if it was heaven.

It consumed him.

Then, he woke up, and the world was different.

He woke up, and the skin around his neck had turned a bright purple, like a splash of paint that he couldn’t scrub off.

These were “soul marks.”

Talia had explained it, sort of. She’d said the connection between humans could be strong and deep – a still lake. The only visible signs were…

Taking off her gloves, she’d stroked his cheek, leaving behind a faint teal streak in the line of her fingers. “…the colors. Yes. It seems…” She studied the orange let behind on her fingertips, bright, glowing. “I may have made less of an impact on you than you have on me.” She shook her head. “Never mind. Just know that these are the mark of the collision of two human souls. The brighter the color, the more intense the collision.”

“Must be because you haven’t got much of a soul left,” Jason had snarked, and Talia had made sure he didn’t get anything to eat that night.

At the time, Jason hadn’t cared, but after returning to Gotham he’d started to pay more attention. There was Dick, with his technicolor skin shimmering with hardly any bare skin left; Replacement, who bore fewer marks but each one vibrant as the sun; Babs, who guarded her colors jealously but smiled like they were her happiness. Even Bruce, who Jason would have said was soulless enough to not have _any_ marks had one on his shoulder, Alfred’s shimmering silver.

Jason only had two: Talia’s weak teal fingers on his face, and the Joker’s mottled purple grip around his neck. Jason supposed it was only fitting that the only marks on his skin were those branded with hate. Hate made him who he was, after all.

He made sure never to show any skin when he went out. It served a double purpose: to hide his soul marks and to avoid acquiring more, because deep down he wondered - maybe he would only ever be touched in hate. He didn’t really want to find out.

Jason heard a light rustle alight on the rooftop behind him. He spun around, concealed handgun already drawn and cocked before realizing it was Orphan, out of costume and hands raised above her head to show she wasn’t here to fight. Her dark eyes glittered in the smoggy Gotham night lights. 

Cassandra Cain, or Cas to those who knew her. Possibly the one person in all of Gotham more fucked up than him, but at least she was working on it. Jason admired her for that. 

Jason stowed his gun away. “What do you want?” he said. “I’m out of commission for at least the next two weeks, but I’m sure you already know that. Big B send you here to harass me?”

Cas just tilted her head, her face a never-changing blank mask. _Can I come closer and sit?_ she signed.

Jason threw his hands up. “I love it when people ignore me. Sure, why the fuck not. Let’s have a girl’s night.” He sprawled back onto the ground and patted the cold concrete next to him.

The look Cas gave him could freeze lava, but Jason paid it no mind as she carefully sat down cross-legged on the ground beside him.

Jason turned his attention back across Gotham. “Don’tcha love staring at the stars in this beautiful city?” Jason waved his good hand at the sky. “All that lung cancer staring down at you. Really makes you appreciate life.”

 _You chose to come back_ , Cas signed. _You could have gone anywhere, but you came here_.

“What is it with you Bats and psychoanalysis?” Jason scoffed. “It doesn’t matter where I went. I just had unfinished business here.”

Cas signed, _Not a Bat_.

Jason frowned at her. “What?”

 _I’m not a Bat. Not really._ Cas’s breaths were coming out in translucent white puffs. _I was never like the others. I started by killing. It’s what I was raised to be. I still wonder if I will ever be anything else. None of the rest of them understand._

Jason snorted. “What, and I would?”

Cas frowned. _I don’t know if you would. I thought I would find out._

“Well, in case it’s escaped your notice, I’m not like you either.” Jason tipped his head back so he wasn’t looking at Cas, his eyes trained on the purple underbelly of the smog covering the Gotham skies. “I chose to be a killer. I make that choice every day of my goddamn life.”

Cas’s eyes were hard. _Maybe_ , she signed. _But in this, I don’t think it matters why we're both clinging to the edge._

Jason raised an eyebrow at her. “Yeah? Why’s that?”

_I want to show you something._

Jason watched curiously as Cas began to unbutton her shirt. She shrugged her left arm out of its sleeve to reveal a dark red soul mark right over her heart. The color seemed to pulse in the dim light of night. Jason could only imagine how she got it.

“Ah. That’s what you wanted to show me, huh.”

Cas nodded. _Now, you see?_ She tapped the soul mark. Jason watched with disgusted fascination as the color shimmered a little where her skin dimpled under her finger. _This is where my mother tried to kill me. This is where she_ did _kill me_.

Absentminded, Jason brushed his gloved fingers over his own neck, where dark purple strung a noose around his neck. “I guess we match.”

 _That is what I was trying to tell you_ . Cas looked Jason in the eye. _I don’t think it matters why we are clinging to the edge. The end result is the same._

Jason looked away. “Maybe,” he said. 

_I didn’t tell you this for pity_ , Cas signed sharply. _I want to try something_.

“Yeah? What?”

 _I want to see what happens when we touch_.

Jason blinked. “ _What_?”

 _Don’t you want to know?_ Cas signed. _If you can have something else? Something other than…_ she gestured at Jason's neck and her own chest, _this?_

Jason shook his head slowly. “Know? Sure. But aren’t you scared?”

 _Do you have doubts_? Cas asked. 

Jason snorted. “No shit. If the only marks on you were from Talia al fucking Ghul and the goddamn Joker, you would have doubts too.”

 _I_ do, Cas signed. _I do still have doubts. But I have hope now, too, and I’m willing to take that chance._

“And me?”

 _I want you to take that chance with me_ . Cas tilted her head. _It’s both of us. It has to be._

Jason let out a deep breath. “Y’know what? You’re crazy, but you infected me. I’ll do it.”

With shaking hands, Jason pulled off one glove. Hand bare to the night air, Jason slowly reached out toward Cas’s skin. “Last chance to back out.”

Cas just shifted closer.

Jason pressed his hand to her chest.

A shock of bright orange exploded from underneath his hand. Jason yanked his hand back, unprepared for such a strong reaction. Both Jason and Cas stared in fascination as Jason’s color bloomed across her skin, the edges roiling like the ocean waves. Cas’s skin looked stitched together where Jason’s mark met Lady Shiva’s.

For a moment, they both just stared at Cas’s chest, breathing hard.

Then, Cas looked up at Jason, and she smiled. _Thank you_ , she mouthed.

Jason shook his head, still in shock.

Cas’s eyes drifted down towards Jason’s hand. Her eyes widened. _Look_ , she signed.

Jason looked down at his hand and let out a strangled yell. “What the _fuck_?”

Where his bare hand had touched Cas, his skin was now a bright splotch of yellow, running from his palm to the back of his hand all the way up to his forearm. The color gleamed pure even under the hazy neon night sky. 

When he looked back up at Cas, he found that she wasn’t paying any attention to him, her lips slightly parted as she stared at his hand. _That’s my color_ , her fingers signed. _That’s… me._

Jason frowned. He’d thought that Cas had at least touched the other members of the Bat clan before.

Cas looked up to see Jason’s furrowed eyebrows. _I have touched them_ , she signed. _It’s just…_ She gripped her bicep. _They left much stronger marks on me than I did on them._ Her eyes shined. _It hurt._

Jason breathed out through his nose. “Yeah,” he said. “I know that feeling.”

Jason waited for Cas to put her shirt back on before settling in next to her. For a while, they breathed in the cool night air together.

After a few minutes, Cas signed, _Except Alfred_.

Jason laughed. “Yeah. That’s Alf. You know, if there’s anyone I do miss out of them… it’s him. He was always there for me, even when Bruce couldn’t be.”

 _I think he would still be_ , Cas signed.

Jason considered the shimmering yellow on his hand. “You think?”

With a small smile playing about her lips like she knew what Jason was thinking, Cas signed, _I do_.

“Well, then.” Jason turned his head back up to the night sky. He couldn’t see a single star. “Maybe I’ll pay him a visit.”

Cas tapped him on the arm and he looked down to see her smiling at him. _We’ll be waiting_ . _Me and Alfred._

Jason let out a soft laugh. “Yeah. I guess you will.”

**Author's Note:**

> this was supposed to be for my birthday (which i share with jason!!) based on this birthday prompt sheet I found - mine was canon with soulmates! i love jason and cas so much and i hc that they're good friends bc both of them received lethal training so yay! i hope you enjoyed this!  
> theres a tiiiinny hint of jaydick but yknow this aint about dick lol ;P  
> 


End file.
